The Best Movies of 2014

This year was tough for me in terms of good movies, because I saw a shitload of them, and there really wasn't a clear 'winner.' I do stand by my Number 1 choice on this list, but really it didn't win by a huge margin. Almost all of these films were neck-and-neck, with the top six or seven of them being nearly equal in terms of quality. It was tough to make this list just because there were so many fucking good movies out this year, and I didn't even see everything I wanted to.

First, though, some runners up. These are the movies that I really enjoyed, though not quite enough to put them on an actual list of the best movies of the year, but enough to mention them anyway out of some kind of impulse to cram more titles into this thing. Don't judge me.

Mockingjay

I wanted to mark this down because I hate the idea of splitting a book adaptation into two parts. It's money-grubbing crap and they could have figured out a way to put the entire book into one movie if they wanted to. But you just can't argue with how good this is. Francis Lawrence wields his directorial hammer once again and crafts a masterpiece. This has gorgeous cinematography and visuals, acting so good you feel like even the fantasy-politics they're talking are real, characters you care about and a cool, smart social commentary on how media can be used as a weapon to incite fear and change social opinions. I know a lot of people like to puff themselves up and talk about how this series is just teen crap with love triangles, etc, but it's a lot more than that, and this movie proves it. I'll see the second part too.

Blue Ruin

In my worst movies list, I talked about The Equalizer and why Hollywoodized revenge films portraying revenge as cool and stylish are shit. Blue Ruin is the antithesis to those movies. This is a down-and-dirty, Dennis-Lehane-styled Southern thriller about this little dude who comes home to get revenge for his parents' murders years earlier. I like that this doesn't give you the typical rugged, super-attractive Christian Bale-esque main lead character, the kind of guy who despite being at the end of his rope and half-insane, still manages to brush his hair and put on moisturizer every day. No – the main guy here is this meek, awkward, nervous little guy who seems like he's got a real short fuse. That's realistic and the character is interesting. With a bunch of bloody violence and a fast pace, this movie gets to business quick and remains entertaining throughout. Go see it.

Starry Eyes

Weird, spastic, out-there horror. This evokes Lynch and Kubrick at times and makes for a creepy, imaginative romp. The second half sort of becomes a different movie entirely and explodes into a gala of gore and alien serial-killing and body-metamorphoses. I also enjoyed the sort of commentary on hipster-types saying they're going to do things but usually just being pretentious fops about it and spending their time drinking and doing drugs. It's also a story about acting and the way art eats you alive. Go see it now.

And now for the real heavy-hitters – the actual Top 10 of the year, according to me!

10. The Skeleton Twins

Really raw, powerful and funny dramedy about two twins who reunite in the middle of some personal crises. Powerful performances by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are only part of the appeal, with the rest being the stunning writing – you really get into this story and it affects you. The characters are flawed and human, and it's interesting to watch. You get a very good blend of the drama and the comedy here, and so it's a very complete, professional feeling film that will satisfy every need you have in watching one. Well, maybe not the need for sci-fi action, but even so.

9. Gone Girl

David Fincher returns with an adaptation of mega-hit novel Gone Girl from rising star Gillian Flynn. This story about a marriage gone horribly wrong is delivered with a dark sort of humor just like the book had. Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as lead characters Nick and Amy are masterful, and the rest of the supporting cast does awesome, too. There's a lot of commentary here on the media cycle and the way public opinion matters in high profile crime cases, as well as commentary on the way women are treated in modern American relationships – all of this is attacked with a satirical, barbed spear and a dark cynicism and humor. I would probably love this more if I hadn't read the book, as they're almost the same thing with very few differences, but even so, Gone Girl the movie is a masterful, deftly-made piece of art.

8. The Fault in Our Stars

Another great book from the last few years hit the silver screen. This romance story about two teens with cancer is just an all around great film, tugging at your heartstrings, delivering funny moments and setting up a world you can't get enough of. The performances are intense and feel like the characters are real and the story moves along so expertly that you barely notice two hours have gone by. I actually enjoyed Shailene Woodley's portrayal of main character Hazel even more than the character from the source material – this girl deserves an Oscar already. This is just an essential film that anyone can get into.

7. The Babadook

The scariest movie of the year, as well as one of the very best new horror films I've come across. This story about a mother and her child in Australia being stalked by a storybook monster has much more to it than just that, as I've talked about already. This is a story about parenting and the scariest parts of it. The mother's character arc is just chilling and the way the visual setting and tone of the film subtly changes over the course of the film is just masterful. The lighting, camera angles, directing style – all of this comes together and makes The Babadook a chilling fucking experience. The real cincher though is just the pure fear of a parent that might kill her child – that is what makes The Babadook scary as hell.

6. Interstellar

Christopher Nolan is back with his best film in years. He directed, wrote and produced this, so I guess it's more of a personal project than something like The Dark Knight Rises, and you can tell. This is a story about space exploration and a dying world, but it's also a story about the old American pioneer spirit – and what it means for the world. There's a lot of talk here about the consequences of exploration as opposed to practicality, dealing with the world as it is, and the film weighs both sides pretty equally.

Matthew McConaghuey is the lead and he does a good job, and his daughter played by Jessica Chastain is outstanding. Like the best Nolan films, this combines conceptual sci-fi ideas with a sort of raw, intense, focused emotion – here being the father-daughter love and all the buried emotions beneath that. Visually this is also the most interesting film of the year, with some really amazing looking outer-space landscapes that will just floor you. I mean they're seriously just awesome. The visuals combined with good characters and a thought-provoking story about where mankind is going makes Interstellar one of the year's finest.

5. Men, Women and Children

I feel like a lot of Jason Reitman films don't really appeal to the sort of college-aged crowd that really obsesses over and talks about movies all the time. They're very much about characters who you don't like all THAT much and who represent the sort of mainstream, regular Americans that said college-aged crowd doesn't gel with. This is a movie about very regular, average people who you wouldn't care about in an individual film, dealing with the repercussions of the Internet in middle-class America. It's an anthology-type of story and when combined together, they form a very powerful statement. This is a movie unlike most others out right now, because it's about something very current and important to almost everyone who would come across it. No, it doesn't tackle people with the most serious or grave of problems, but it does talk about very real things.

The fact that it's about the Internet and shows people of all ages using it is fascinating because the Internet is still evolving as we speak – every day we write history and forage into new territory with it, and rather than wait 30 years and then make a historical fiction film about the early 2010s, Reitman chose to do it now. That's important. This is maybe not for everyone in terms of sheer enjoyment, but in terms of scope and dynamic and social relevance, this is one of the most important films of the year, as it talks about the Right-Now, in very candid, blunt language – showing us a mirror of ourselves and what our Internet culture does to us. It's also Reitman's most mature work to date.

4. Boyhood

This is a much-talked-about film and for good reason. Filmed over the course of 12 years with the same cast, the film was then compiled into a coming of age epic about, well – boyhood. It's a stripped down, unpretentious film and works well to show a very down-to-Earth story. There's really nothing Hollywood about it – no adornments, no dramatic flourishes, very little “witty” dialogue...it's very much like what you'd see in real life. Some people go to movies to get away from real life, but this movie pretty much just shows life how it is, complete with great acting and a lot of memorable scenes. It's a long movie that doesn't bore you – instead there are just that many more great moments to choose from.

There's a beauty to the simplicity of this and a real appeal to how genuine and detailed this all is – I guess that's a product of 12 years of filmmaking. Even if this weren't a top-10 movie for the year though, it would deserve accolades for the sheer effort and scope of it. 12 years of filmmaking is a long-ass time and the effort shows here very clearly. This is a monument to the power of film, and what it can accomplish in its most creative and long-form styles. Brilliant work.

3. Obvious Child

A very low-key sort of indie comedy about a comedienne who gets an abortion after a one-night stand with a guy. I really like this just for the way it humanizes a hot-button topic like abortion. Made by less-talented folks, this would be a propaganda film that demonized antiabortion folks and had some sort of domineering religious parent and a chief “bad guy” in some sort of Christian fundamentalist character who would try and block the main character in everything she did. But as this is a movie made by adults, instead we get a subtle, very interesting comedy with great characters telling great jokes that don't at all diminish the serious undertones of a character getting an abortion. It takes a lot of talent to balance comedy and drama this well, but Obvious Child pulls it off.

It's just a delight of a film. The lead played by Jenny Slate is just awesome and Slate just does such a fucking good job at delivering her lines and making you like the character – she's funny, sympathetic, tough, vulnerable, etc. The other leads are all good too. The way the story is told just draws you in instantly and keeps you hooked, despite its rather simple plot. The decision she makes to get the abortion doesn't feel too easy or too hard and the film doesn't moralize on you or try to take a stand – it just humanizes a really complex issue. In these incredibly polarized times politically, I think that's really, really important. That's why this one gets the #3 spot.

2. Nightcrawler

One of the most intelligent, ruthless and creative films of the year. Jake Gyllenhaal gives probably the performance of his career so far as a guy with extremely wide eyes who wants to get into crime journalism's seedy underbelly – i.e. basically going around in the middle of the night filming bloody crash sites and shit. This is an incredibly nuanced and complex film. Through its darkly comedic lenses it satirizes the 24/7 media cycle and the desensitization of modern society to violence. It also has this quite underplayed riffing on the start-up business culture our generation has cultivated. There's one scene where Gyllenhaal and his sidekick are running away from a murder scene and Gyllenhaal is lecturing the other dude the whole time about how he needs to prioritize his work, etc – it's so fucked up, but it's brilliant, and that sums up most of the movie. This is satire with a black wit and genius intelligence, and I love the hell out of it.

1. Birdman

This is simply the most artful, passionate, weird and wonderful movie of the year. Michael Keaton delivers the greatest acting of 2014 – he's just amazing in this, stealing every scene he's in. The directing is madcap-insane, with these huge stretches with no cuts or breaks, often delving into close-ups of the main characters and showing all their flaws and fears and insecurities. That's what Birdman is about – acting as an art and a lifestyle, and how the public opinion and expectations eats you alive. There is just so much in here, so much complexity and meaning, that I could never do it justice in this little blurb.

There's a reason Keaton appears in a few scenes in nothing but his underwear, is all I can say – it's about revealing one's bare soul and darkest secrets and most embarrassing moments. That's what this movie is about. Anyone who dabbles in any kind of art – acting, music, writing, whatever – will find this a treasure. Birdman is movie of the year and if you haven't seen it yet, you're missing out.

Images copyright of their original owners, I own none of them.

The Top 13 Movies of 2013

Drum roll, please ...

I remember when I was first starting out 2013 - well, for the first several months, really, I just wasn't finding many really good movies. For big theater releases, that will always be a problem, as they just put out a lot of crap at the beginning of the year with only the occasional indie flick spliced in for good measure. Summertime brings us a bunch of big action movies. Whereas last year had a lot of them I found really great, this year we got a bit short-changed, let's say. I just wasn't finding much to really dig my teeth into.

And it's so hard to see everything you want to see when it actually comes out. That's why I spend January watching movies I missed over the last year. And lo and behold - what I thought was a fairly weak year for films turned out to be a year full of amazing movies. I still didn't even see everything I wanted to. I'll be catching up on this year as much as I have on any past year in terms of films.

But I did find a lot of gems I'd missed throughout 2013, and so I decided to make this list. Let's start from the bottom!

13. Prince Avalanche

Two guys, pretty much polar opposites, work on a desolate road in the late 80s. While doing that, they run into women problems and learn some things about each other. It’s fun and charming. Great acting from Emile Hirsch and Paul Rudd is icing on the bromance cake. If there were a TV show with these two, I’d probably watch it – that’s enough for me to say this is a good, good flick.

12. Fruitvale Station

The real life account of Oscar Grant, a black male who was assaulted and killed by police on New Year’s Eve 2008 – a case which resulted in an overhaul of the police department. This is well acted and really does a good job of showing a real life account of this guy before the tragedy happened. While it’s a good account of police brutality and modern-day racism already (though it could have stood to include some more scenes after the event happened and been better for it), the real reason this deserves a spot is its between-the-lines commentary: your reaction to Grant’s death will gauge where you fit in terms of your opinions on those very complex issues. Whether you think the film was too sympathetic to Grant or did a good job presenting things idealistically, it just means the film had an impact on you. The only way this wouldn’t be a good film is if you didn’t care enough to think about it even a little.

11. Gravity

The deepest recesses of space provides the scariest movie all year. While this isn’t a horror movie by any standard, the sheer terror you feel looking at the vast black canvass of stars puts it up there anyway. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are great as two astronauts in this, but their characters aren’t the real focal point. The focal point is when you see Bullock spiraling uncontrollably away from everything she’s ever known into a dark abyss from which there is no guarantee of return. My heart stopped when I saw this in the theater. The sheer scope and magnitude of the events is just great and the film’s strong point is its adventurous feel and the danger it puts the characters in. A great survival film.

10. The Butler

Another real-life account, this time of White House butler Cecil Grant, who served under eight presidents from the 50s to the modern day. Forest Whitaker puts on an Oscar-worthy performance in this, and David Oyelowo as his son Louis is just as good. While parts of this get a bit Hollywood-schmaltzy, the best parts of the film, and the meat of it, are the interactions between the father and son – when set out over this vast historical backdrop, it really makes the film a genuine epic. Bonus points for the great choices of who’s playing the various presidential figures!

9. Pacific Rim

The best action movie of the year hands down. People will tell you this has no substance, that it’s just mindless action, but really it’s very well done action. The battle scenes are the best all year, the fights are incredibly well crafted and gripping and the special effects are amazingly good. The characters are serviceable; they’re not going to wow you, but they do the job they were supposed to – they keep the story fast paced and they allow the action scenes to roll over you like a fucking war tank. Pacific Rim rules.

8. Don Jon

A very down to Earth romance about a kinda Jersey Shoreish dude named Jon who can purportedly get any girl he wants and yet loves masturbating more than anything else. Through the course of the film he discovers true love, blah blah blah – sounds cliché, right?

Absolutely not. Joseph Gordon Levitt’s directorial debut is a splendid take on a tired genre, mixing clever, funny dialogue, some very memorable and snappy scenes and genuinely good characters into a delightful brew. It’s just very real, and shows off some great insight into the average human relationship. I like that the characters aren’t idealized; they are presented in a very natural, low-key fashion and not treated like they’re better than your everyday people. They are kind of unlikable, and that makes it all the better when, like real people, they have their individual moments of goodness.

Even when the film occasionally does get Hollywood on us, Levitt’s mastery of the style makes the moment feel realistic enough that we believe it. Don Jon is a top notch romantic comedy.

7. The Place Beyond the Pines

Grand, sweeping epic masterpiece. This chronicle of three different intersecting lives over many years spans a bank robber looking out for his estranged family, the cop who kills him and both of their troubled sons. At times this is a bit too baggy and long, but only in parts. The sheer weight of the film is massive and the acting and storytelling put together something very compelling about the effect one’s actions have on anyone on the receiving end. It’s very much the Butterfly effect, as each segment bleeds tangentially into the next one as the characters each try to get ahead and look for ways out of the darkness brought upon them by their ancestors and their circumstances in this life. They all dance on the edge of the place beyond the pines, which is a place none of them really wants to go.

6. In a World…

This was a delight. A quirky, off-beat comedy about a woman trying to get into the voice-acting field that doesn’t want her – as her father says, there isn’t a demand for a feminine voice in a movie trailer. But she goes at it anyway and actually gets the jobs despite her father’s misogynistic old-world views and the challenges from another arrogant asshole of a voice actor. This could have easily turned into a cliché ‘inspirational’ picture, but it plays things pretty mellow and doesn’t focus too much on the “little train that could” mindset. Instead it’s just a high-energy, kick ass comedy spliced with romance and just the right social feministic themes – it really is a very empowering movie for women, saying more with less. Nothing here is cliché, there are tons of funny moments and it’s got a lot of complex things to say and yet does it in a laid-back way like it was the easiest thing in the world. There is a lot to love with this. I’d be selling it short if I spoiled it. Just go see it.

5. Prisoners

The best crime film in years. This takes me back to a time when this genre was about good storytelling rather than stupid gimmicks, redundant cliché and gore-filled garbage. Reminding me very much of films like The Pledge and Mystic River, Prisoners will knock you on your ass with its palpable suspense and mounting tension. The film, about two families and a detective trying to find two missing daughters, is legitimately terrifying, and I found myself just forgetting everything else and sitting there with my jaw on the fucking floor at how good this movie was. Every time it seemed like there had been some kind of emotional high water mark of pure blackened screaming terror, something else happened to raise the bar.

Everything that happens is horrific to watch, but you can’t peel your eyes away because it’s also incredibly engrossing, and you have to see what happens next – the hallmark of any great crime film. The movie’s pacing is excellent and just rolls over you like a wave. The directing really works to create an atmosphere – this misty Pennsylvania with its high reaching trees and dark shadowy buildings – and add emphasis to the film’s best moments. I couldn’t stop watching this. At 153 minutes it was still too short.

4. Short Term 12

A bunch of 20-somethings working at a home for troubled teens discover some things about themselves – most notably Grace and Mason, whose relationship is about to enter turbulent waters. I can’t say very much else without spoiling this wonderful film, but it really is just a peach of a movie. Strong, funny dialogue and good dramatic scenes play off one another brilliantly, each knowing its place and not forgetting that the other is also needed for levity.

The characters are brilliantly done and the story unfolds gently but sturdily, not treating the audience like children or obscuring the point too much either. The story just is, and the bare honesty it has is just a breath of fresh air. It has something it wants to say and just says it in a way that is frank, honest, tragic, funny and heartbreaking all at the same time – yet ultimately rewarding at the end. Like any troubling time in real life, the tide breaks and the characters come through to the light again, and the feeling is very, very satisfying.

There’s no bullshit with this. I can talk about the technical reasons the writing is good all I want, but it speaks for itself. I loved the characters, loved the story – just a wonderful movie.

3. The World’s End

The worst thing about the final installment in the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost/Edgar Wright trilogy is that it’s over now. This stands up strong with its predecessors, and was well worth the wait. Like the other movies before it, The World’s End is full of great jokes crammed in at light speed, making for a very complex take on comedy. The story, about a bunch of old friends reuniting to try a pub crawl again after something like twenty years, is funny, heartfelt and thoughtful all at the same time, packing in a message about not living in the past and coping with the present day and future rather than fighting them. This might be the best I’ve seen Pegg yet, and the characters are all generally good, starting off a bit bland but really growing as you go through the film.

This isn’t gut-bustingly funny like the other two, but a more complex and calculated work. The jokes are even more based in repetition than before, with every scene a call-back or foreshadowing to something else in the movie and lots of little sight gags and wordplay crammed in. The whole thing unfolds like an origami. The maturing of Edgar Wright since Shaun of the Dead is notable – and we shouldn’t stop short of noticing the parallels between the evolution of these movies and the message of The World’s End: things change, and we should roll with it.

2. The Wolf of Wall Street

Martin Scorsese is the devil himself, and we’re just along for the ride. This is the best I’ve seen Scorsese in years, and also the best DiCaprio performance maybe of his whole career thus far. The Wolf of Wall Street … is not like other movies. It’s just not. This is a three-hour megalith of sex, drugs and insanity. It’s also a wonderfully, perversely deviant work that smashes boundaries and expectations like a wreckingball coming straight for your childhood home. You wanted a moral? A redeeming social value? Any kind of character development? Well, the movie has none of those things. And it revels in that.

I’m just so tired of Hollywood schmaltz like several of the films on my Worst Of list – I’m tired of movies that have to shove a moral down your throat out of some primordial Christian fear of being reprimanded or shunned – because that is what so many lesser movies are. They have to underline and bold-face their morals to fit into some kind of vague notion of what a movie should be. In doing so they don’t really have much of an artistic ground to stand on, because they are pandering to some sense of social normativity. They compromise themselves. This is something else.

If The Wolf of Wall Street was poorly made or acted, it would merely be a curiosity, but the production values are through the roof and the acting is outstanding. Jonah Hill performs at 110% as do all the other supporting cast members. And as I said, Leo is mint in this. Scorsese’s directing is master-class too, not that I expected anything else – but the rampant energy that courses through every minute of this three-hour film is something to be wowed by. Most movies this long slow down and get caught up in their own weight – this is full fuckin’ speed all the way.

Frankly this is a godsend for movies in the modern day. It will be polarizing, but I for one cherish it.

1. Catching Fire

With all the great movies already on this list, I can’t say this one is really sky-high above the rest, but it is a whole and complete work of art and really, stayed with me more than anything else. I was wondering why that was – and there are a lot of reasons.

The thing is, movies are escapism – whether it’s escaping into a realistic story and losing yourself in someone else’s problems, or escaping into a fantasy story and finding a whole new world. No other movie this year quite sucked me in like this one. The atmosphere in this is so thick, and the settings so good, that I felt like I really was there – some of the scenes in this are heartbreaking and haunting. I liked the jarring directing style of the first movie, felt it added to the effect, but the directing in this is just astounding in its scope, clarity and memorability.

As a book-to-movie transition it is an absolute triumph, as it successfully does pretty much everything that needed to be seen with the story while also remaining an artistic, very well done film on its own. I can’t imagine anyone complaining about stuff from the book left out in this one. The acting is just stellar, too, with Jennifer Lawrence getting my personal Best Actor/Actress in general all year – the fact that she was nominated for American Hustle instead of this really outlines how little respect there is for movies deemed “too young-adult.” Which is pretty deserved in a lot of cases, but not this one.

Overall this is a film about rebellion. It is an aching, angry heart in the middle of the film’s oppressive dystopian regime – every scene just bleeds resentment and rebellion. It is a movie about strength in the face of innumerable odds, about Katniss and her ongoing struggle. Above all there is strength in this movie. And that’s why this is the movie of the year.

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And that's my top 13 of 2013. I was so prepared for this list to be full of simply good movies - not stuff I was really passionate about. But I did find so many films to love when I was going back to see what I had missed. There were a lot of really amazing films this year. And there are every year. This is not some kind of lone-standing incident, but a lesson to be learned. Never simply be content with whatever's right in front of you. You never know when something else you may love even more is lying just a little bit left-of-center.

All images copyright of their original owners. I do not own any of them.

The Top 20: My Favorite Movies of All Time

Yesterday, I gave you all my personal Bottom 20 list, the worst movies out there for me. Today, I am focusing on the positive side: these are my very favorite movies. All of them are films that I can watch any time and get enjoyment from, films that I learn about the world from or about art from, and films that I hold dear to my heart. I wouldn't say all of them are necessarily the BEST out there - classics such as Casablanca, Citizen Kane and others do not feature here - these are just my favorites; the ones that have shaped me as a person. With no further ado, I present to you...the list!

20. Primal Fear

A legal thriller mixed in with some very deft twists and turns that make it one of the more unforgettable, go-for-the-throat thrillers of the 90s. Richard Gere is great and Edward Norton is just awesome in this, in one of his first roles ever. Primal Fear is a classic of mystery/thriller films.

19. The Hitcher

Just an all around winner of a movie, The Hitcher rocks some great Nevada desert settings, a killer, suspenseful plot and a great Rutger Hauer performance. It’s just a meat-and-potatoes good movie, and if you haven’t seen it, you should get on it now.

18. Rosemary’s Baby

Another essential horror film, Rosemary’s Baby is the tale of a young married woman pregnant with her first child. When she starts noticing strange things, she begins to suspect a plot against her and her baby. The reason this is so scary is because it could very well be all in her head. Maybe she is just being paranoid – for a lot of the film, it’s really not that clear. And once it is clear that there is something more going on, that fear is replaced by the even graver, more serious fear of a mother on the verge of losing her child. A true monument of fear.

17. Die Hard

This is another one that doesn’t get on the list for any one stand-out reason, but just for how good all its elements combined are. With Bruce Willis’s working-man charisma, the non-stop suspense and the well constructed action scenes that get more and more explosive as the film goes on, one Die Hard is worth ten thousand Transformers movies. Smart, fun, action packed to the core, Die Hard is a bona fide classic.

16. Halloween

John Carpenter’s 1978 classic is my personal pick for the scariest movie of all time. This film just shows us a nice suburban neighborhood in which hell breaks loose one night. Unlike the later films, this has no backstory for the killer and no real explanation for why he’s doing what he’s doing. He’s just on a rampage through this unsuspecting ‘burb and kills innocent people in horrible ways. The next time you turn this on, just imagine your own neighborhood in a similar scenario. Imagine a silent, unstoppable killer stalking your streets and picking off your friends one by one. Yeah. That’s why this movie is on the list. Essential horror.

15. LA Confidential

Just a killer crime movie. LA Confidential is actually based on a book written by the same guy who wrote Black Dahlia – which was also made into a movie, which made it onto my ‘worst movies ever’ list. Funny how this one is on my ‘best movies’ list. I guess it just goes to show you how much a good director can change things. LA Confidential is the story of three cops in the 50s and their involvement in a huge crime ring bust. I love it for how intense the pacing is and how good the characters are. Just an awesome, awesome movie.

14. Mulholland Dr.

Probably the darkest and most insane movie on this list, David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. was the first film by him that I saw. Filled to the brim with ghastly imagery, nail biting suspense, and a plot that appears to get darker and darker with every turn, Mulholland Dr., like Eyes Wide Shut, is a great horror film, even despite not being a horror film at its core. At its core, this is a deeply twisted character study and a brilliant avant garde film that captivates me every time.

13. Eyes Wide Shut

Stanley Kubrick’s last film is one of his very best, and one of the most captivating experiences I have had with a movie as of late. Eyes Wide Shut is a great film for its surreal atmosphere and the creativity of its whacked out imagery. It is also a great horror film on one level and a great romance film on another: with bizarre, mysterious intrigue and lustful, achingly beautiful scenery, Kubrick crafted an unforgettable experience.

11. The Seventh Seal

I’m a newbie to Ingmar Bergman’s oeuvre, but when I saw The Seventh Seal last year, it was definitely an eye opening experience. For one, the film talks about death – how much larger of a theme can you even have? – and two, it talks about it in such an all encompassing, larger than life, down to Earth way that I doubt you will ever find any other film like it. It is an epic tale of medieval crusaders who grapple with death and their very finite mortality – being in the Middle Ages, it’s not like most of these people will live very long either, so the drama is higher. The Seventh Seal is a breathtaking, life affirming experience, and you should go see it.

10. Scott Pilgrim VS the World

This will probably be the most surprising choice on this list, but I really think this is one of the most important movies of the last few years. In every generation, there are a few films and books that just define it entirely – they show what was culturally important, what people talked about, what was wrong with the generation, and more. Scott Pilgrim is like that for the last half of the 2000s and the early 2010s – you know, the “hipster generation.” With a very funny script and batshit insane directing choices, this basically tells the story of Scott Pilgrim, a Canadian guy who falls in love with a girl named Ramona and has to fight her “evil exes” in order to win her heart. With references to everything people our age (early 20s, late teens) like, from music to gaming to dating, this comes out as a very deft, subtle satire of our culture of hipsters, gamers, anime fans and everything in between. But it does so in a respectful way that allows us to look at ourselves critically without getting too spiteful or malignant. In addition to being important and intelligently written, it's also stylistically gorgeous, gut-bustingly funny and a hell of a lot of fun. One of my new favorites.

9. Taxi Driver

A portrait of a man’s life in grimy 1970s-era New York, Taxi Driver is my favorite Robert DeNiro performance as well as my favorite Scorsese movie. This is just so fascinating to me because of the character Travis Bickle, who has got to be one of my favorite movie characters ever. An unstable and mentally wired creep, the film just sort of tells the story of his life, and it appears by all accounts that he’s going downhill…until he meets Jodie Foster’s character, a 12-year old prostitute, and decides he wants to save her. Taxi Driver is a film about fate, exploring it as a coin toss. By all logical trains of thought, Travis Bickle was a man headed for a blowup, teetering on the edge of complete disaster. But instead, he saved a girl and became a hero at the drop of a dime. It’s a brilliant character study and one of my favorite movies of all time.

8. The Sandlot

I think this is probably the only movie on this list that I’ve known about since before I turned 10 years old. I loved The Sandlot back then, and I love it even more now. The mark of a good movie for me is if it can take something mundane or ordinary and turn it into a big epic, which this does. It’s just about baseball, yeah, but at the same time, it’s about a kid moving to a new place, finding friends and discovering what becomes a lifelong passion. Everything in this film is treated with a huge larger than life sense of adventure, and having great characters and a funny, fast paced script doesn’t hurt either. I love baseball, I love these characters and I love The Sandlot.

7. The Big Lebowski

Simply the funniest movie I’ve ever seen. Every second of this is packed with jokes, references to previous jokes and simply witty, wry moments. Frankly, this goes way above and beyond what the usual comedy formula is with incredibly intelligent writing and surprising complexity, at that. There is so much going on here that I notice new things every time, and the characters and acting are so good they are impeccable. I can’t decide whether John Goodman as Walter or Jeff Bridges as The Dude is funnier. Fortunately, such a choice is unnecessary: they’re both amazing. Nothing else to say about this one; just a great comedy from the masters of bizarre, off-kilter films, and one I can watch any time and enjoy wholeheartedly.

6. Thank You For Smoking

Not quite as laugh out loud funny as The Big Lebowski, but I’m putting Thank You For Smoking higher on my list because I feel it is a rarity in movies: it is completely objective. It has no slant, no bias. This movie talks about censorship and the smoking industry and how people are persuaded by advertisements and the media. It takes a very level headed, mature viewpoint and respectfully lambasts and makes fun of both sides of the argument. The script is very, very good, and the film is so clever that it actually fits in some genuine character development and drama into what is otherwise a deeply satirical, witty movie. Aaron Eckhart is just a gem in this as seemingly amoral lobbyist Nick Naylor, as is Cameron Bright as Joey Naylor, his son. On the surface this is just about smoking, but really this is more universal: it’s about arguing, morality, right and wrong and, ultimately, parenting. It makes its points almost seamlessly in the context of the film, and people who don’t pay attention at first will grossly misread what this is actually about. Frankly, I still don’t think I’m quite done discovering what this film has to offer, and I’ve seen it a bunch of times now. Thank You For Smoking is a treasure.

5. Stranger than Fiction

One of the funniest, most clever and best written romantic comedies of the last decade, Stranger than Fiction is just a great experience. I love the weird, offbeat directing (pretty similar to what Scott Pilgrim would do a few years later), I love the great characters, and I love the oddball storyline. It’s about a tax man, Harold Crick (portrayed brilliantly by Will Ferrell of all people), who begins to hear a woman narrating his life, who says offhand he’s going to die soon. On his adventure to figure out what’s happening to him, he ends up discovering there’s a lot more to life than just his boring job. This movie is basically a longer version of the old adage “live every day like it’s your last,” but for all that, it’s very well put together and the story is charming, funny and deeply likable. I also dig the complex and deeply funny deconstruction of how narrations in movies usually work. Most movies that have a narrator over top just have the characters going about their lives unaware of the narration, but in this film, by some accident of the universe, Harold Crick hears his narrator and responds to her, shouting up at the sky at her in the middle of a crowded street. It’s a great plot point. One of the smartest movies of its genre that I’ve ever seen, and one of my favorite feel-good movies ever.

4. Lost in Translation

Sofia Coppola’s crowning achievement, Lost in Translation is something I think is very much akin to 1920s-era American literature: stuff like Fitzgerald, or Hemingway, or even some of Faulkner’s works, in which not a lot happens on a plot level, but the film remains fascinating and engaging through the characters and their interactions. This movie could easily have been very, very dull, but the directing is amazingly good, the disparate, cluttered Tokyo setting works like a charm, the acting is first-rate and most of all, the characters are some of the greatest ever put to film, in my opinion. I am just totally into this movie every time I turn it on, as it has the basics for any good movie done incredibly well. Above all, there is something poetic in it – the simple, random chance meeting of two lost souls in a big city they’re only visiting, and how they affect each other’s lives. It’s a beautiful and affecting picture of two people and their relationship. Humane, enlightening, uplifting.

3. Se7en

This is simply a flawless film. It has pretty much everything I like in it, from complex characters to a seedy, noir-esque setting and a story that shows a tragic Shakespearean arc of a man whose flaws end up in disaster. Everything about Se7en is tragic and poetic. Both Brad Pitt as Detective Mills and Morgan Freeman as Detective Somerset are impeccably textured, well done characters and are acted really well on top of that. They both have their own things going on, and both of them are so realistic you’d swear they were based on actual people. The film chronicles their investigation of a strange serial killer case as Somerset is about to retire and Mills is just getting started.

Se7en has this dark majesty about it, this idea that while the world is a sewer, and while a lot of terrible things may happen, it’s still worth trying to save. This movie wades through the mire of the dark by saying that you should hold to idealistic values and you should try to be the best you can be, even if the world is never going to repay you for it, even if things don’t turn out all that well in the end. The way this pieces everything together and unifies its themes by the end is just great. David Fincher’s best work and probably my favorite film of the 90s except for…

2. Pulp Fiction

This simply is. Pulp Fiction is an icon of movies simply because of how stylized and idiosyncratic it is – nobody ever saw anything like this before its debut in the 90s, and even though Tarantino wears his influences on his sleeves, taking cues from crime movies as well as boxing movies and tons of other stuff that was at least 30 years old when this came out, the way he blends everything together in Pulp Fiction is just ace.

The directing is good, but really what makes this so great is the script and the acting. Every character in this has hilarious lines and memorable quotes, and the script moves along like a fire-blazing chariot from the heavens, traipsing through seemingly nonsensical scenes and making them all count, simply by virtue of how entertaining they are. This is simply a movie that revels in the joy of storytelling, weaving together a ton of goofy, roguish characters and turning everything up to 11. It’s funny, dramatic, heart-wrenchingly tense and everything in between, and the insane thing is that the styles all blend together as one amalgam mostly known as ‘Tarantino style.’

Pulp Fiction is so good that Tarantino has spent his career up to now just trying to make something anywhere near as good, but as enjoyable as some of his work is, this was simply his magic moment – his shining star. Not putting this as one of my favorite movies of all time would just be a lie, as Pulp Fiction is iconoclastic, unforgettable and deeply, maniacally enjoyable.

And my number 1 choice is...

1. City of God

For a long time, I had a tough time pinpointing why City of God was my absolute favorite film. The first time I saw it, back in 2008, I was just blown away, and no other film had quite the effect on me that this one had. Just everything about it was spellbinding – the rough, raw directing style, the witty and down to Earth way it looks at brutal life conditions, the very well written characters, the multi-faceted story which remains constantly interesting even when it goes off in different directions every ten minutes or so…objectively, yes, this is a great film. But was it enough for it to be my favorite film of all time?

Well, all of those things factored into it. But I think the real reason goes a bit deeper. For one, this is a ‘based on a true story’ film that actually has something to say and has a reason for boasting that. And unlike a lot of films, it doesn’t get all depressive and preachy about the state of South American slums, where the entire movie is based. It simply tells the story of these kids in a slum and how they grow up in the middle of a violent gang war, and the result is something that feels much more mature and well-rounded than the majority of films ever get close to. Main character Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues)’s journey to becoming a photographer is funny, interesting and dramatic – as he points out, he is putting his life on the line to get these pictures of this gang war.

There’s just no bullshit in it; it’s got no pretensions and just shows a great real life story in a larger than life way. The way the script is paced is brilliant: the story moves through several different peoples’ lives in this crappy slum and just shows the way this drama unfolded. It takes a mundane, depressing reality and turns it into something profound in its honesty, in its brevity. There’s always something going on and the film is easy to get into even when the story jumps around from character to character so much that it seems like it’s going to come off the rails. But City of God never loses focus, and each story just adds to the colorful palette of stories.

Further, it’s just a joy of cinematic creation – there are so many memorable shots and moments in this film, and they’re put together so well that it really becomes a work of art. Being that the movie is about a young photographer, it makes sense that the mise en scene is so memorable and evocative. What else would it be? Every scene in this film just glows, and the whole thing is the most stunning film experience I’ve ever had. As a writer and storyteller myself, the way City of God tells these stories and just has so much fun doing it, even when the stories get depressing or dark, is just really admirable and worthy of respect for me. Storytelling is the bedrock of our civilization, and City of God shows exactly why it is such an important art. There is not a moment of this film where I am not completely captivated and enthralled. City of God is my favorite movie of all time.

And that's my Top 20 list, my favorite movies of all time. I look forward to seeing even more movies that will hopefully make the list in the future, and I hope you all enjoyed these lists.

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The Best Movies of 2012

Now we come to our final countdown, the best movies of the year - or rather, at least what I thought were the best. Of course opinions will be divided, but to hell with it, I'm here to force mine down your throats!

THE BEST MOVIES OF 2012

11. Lincoln

Steven Spielberg’s biopic on Abraham Lincoln is a monument of stately, comfortable filmmaking from one of the masters of the business. Everything about this is well-made, polished to a professional sheen that does justice to this great man and really brings him to life on screen for the first time ever. This is a long movie, but it’s incredibly lavish and detailed, with that classic Spielbergian charm that shows he is still the master of thoughtful, uplifting cinema. Daniel Day Lewis is fantastic as Lincoln and the story, about the passage of the 13^th amendment, is carried with maturity. The portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln is also very much worth noting.

10. ParaNorman

Children’s’ movies might get a bad rap, but that’s slowly changing with movies like UP, Ratatouille, How to Train Your Dragon and now ParaNorman. The story is pretty basic, just a tale about a kid who can see ghosts who gets called to save the town from a witch, but basic is the way to go sometimes, and ParaNorman is great because it has well written characters who play off each other quite nicely, stunning visuals (though this is the norm for movies today) and subtle, flowing messages that can resonate with children as well as adults. A clever, deft and energized romp that should not be missed.

9. Dredd

Great action movies are almost as hard to come by as great horror movies these days. Dredd is a great action movie, in the style of Die Hard and Terminator if they were done up in a 2010s style. I’ve never read any of the comics about Judge Dredd, but this movie explodes with huge action scenes, delicious gore and a rocket-speed pace that doesn’t let up. It’s got a cool setting, cool villains and doesn’t pull any punches. This movie is like a metal-plated fist to your gut.

8. Killer Joe

This is the most irreverent movie of the year with how outrageous and indecent it is, and Matthew McConaughey delivers as the titular character with one of my favorite performances all year – he is possessed with a manic, quick-witted furor that almost carries the whole movie on its own, if not for standout performances from Emile Hirsch and Thomas Haden Church, too. This is a bloody good time of a movie that speeds through its runtime like a coked up Hell’s Angel with an attitude problem, unraveling a story of betrayal and greed without any sugar coating. Killer Joe revels in its unholiness and I love it for that very lack of restraint.

7. V/H/S

The best horror movie of the year, and an almost revolutionary experience compared to the sad sacks at attempts the last few years have given us. V/H/S’s strength lies in absolutely genius scares and inventive storytelling. It’s a found footage film that actually uses that to its advantage with some creative framing – a family vacation tape and a webcam chat log – and, here’s a shocker – no obvious jump scares! Yes, instead we get brilliant storytelling that unravels itself in short, sweet bursts of sheer gleeful evil and mayhem; stories that set up their atmospheres and settings quick and then deliver a hell of a punchline with great end twists and fascinatingly gruesome concepts. This is seriously awesome, and horror devotees who love the genre for its imagination will find much to love here.

6. Wreck-It Ralph

A sheer joy to behold, Wreck-It Ralph is the best children’s movie I’ve seen in a long time, hearkening back to the kind of grace and power that 2009’s UP possessed in spades. The key to making a great kids’ film is making sure you tell a great story first and then make it kid-friendly second. And Wreck-It Ralph is good at that because it has hugely memorable characters, a great setting – seriously, arcade games! That’s so cool I’d give it a good rating even if the movie was lame. And a tight, fast-paced, electrically charged plot that never stops moving and is constantly inventive and clever. There are laughs to be had, there are emotive moments and there are fist-pumping action and car chase scenes. Wreck-It Ralph is a treasure of a film.

5. The Avengers

Joss Whedon is one of the best storytellers of our generation, weaving Shakespearean drama with modern sci-fi intrigue, explosive action and even some wry comedy here and there. The Avengers is his new big-screen blockbuster, the big movie that every superhero fan was waiting for, and it’s pretty much the summer blockbuster to end all summer blockbusters. Huge, sweeping action scenes are really only icing on the cake of the characters themselves, who are acted brilliantly and written brilliantly, with Whedon’s strong writing tying together a series of films dating back five years. Important for how conceptually brilliant it is, but also incredibly entertaining, and one of the more satisfying movies of the year. A mighty thunderbolt of a film, down from the heavens.

4. The Amazing Spider-Man

I love Spider-Man and have since I was really young, and this was a revolution for me because it proved we could have a really, really good Spider-Man movie. Not that the Raimi stuff was bad, but Marc Webb’s reboot is just so much better in every way. Everything about this is just grade-A stuff and flows like a charm. This is really Andrew Garfield’s movie as he proves he is a dynamite actor, with a ton of range and bursting emotional power, too. Emma Stone as well delivers maybe my favorite performance of hers yet. The action kicks ass and the story has emotional power and can resonate with audiences today just as well as the original comic book could back in the 60s, with the updates made and the clever, snappy directing. This is a smooth, well put together film that I will never tire of watching.

3. The Hunger Games

This was a real surprise for me, because I thought the first book of the series was good, not great – I really didn’t expect much from this movie. I mean, how many times has a YA book series actually produced something meaningful to cinema? Well, this is my mea culpa – The Hunger Games is a big, sweeping and epic hammer of a film that completely washes over you in waves with how much is going on, submerging the audience in the world entirely. You will feel every chaotic action scene rattle in your bones and the world the movie creates will seem as real as your own every day life, and twice as terrifying. First rate acting from Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson only adds to the vitality and strength this movie has in spades. Truly a story more meant to be seen than read, The Hunger Games is one of the best movies of the year.

2. Chronicle

I knew nothing about this movie when I went into the theater, and it floored me. A powerful, individual tale of three young men in the suburbs who come across a mysterious rock in the ground that gives them superpowers – only for one of them, with an unstable family life, to start losing his mind and using the power for criminal means. The three lead actors are all really great and sell their characters superbly – I fully believed they were who they said they were. The story is a very compelling take on troubled teenagers and the sci-fi twist makes this probably the most original film I saw all year. For its depiction of the unfortunate marginalized kids who just can’t get anywhere even despite their efforts, Chronicle is a powerful film that you shouldn’t miss. Essential.

1. Moonrise Kingdom

I never expected to love a Wes Anderson film, but here it is anyway – Moonrise Kingdom. This is just a lovely movie, with charm, grace and power, as well as a wry, fine-tuned dry sense of humor. There’s so much going on here that it’s too much to comprehend on one viewing alone, but at its core this is a love story, and one of the best love stories, in any medium, I have witnessed in a long time. The thing is that Moonrise Kingdom is not just a love story about two kids getting together, but about family in general – about the ties that bind us together and the fissures that break us apart, and about solace found in unexpected places. With a powerful story told by first rate actors all around, this is funny and romantic and everything in between all at once, integrating everything into a melting pot so well that you stop picking apart the different aspects and just accept it as it is: a force to be reckoned with. And for all the estranged and the lonely out there, this is a light in the dark. Magisterial, unforgettable and powerful.

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